SEVENTEENTH CENTURY FRUMENTIE

Most teachers are paid once a month and it took some doing to learn to manage money so one didn’t run out by the end of the month. Back when I was just starting out and had to pay my own bills rather than rely on Pop to fork over my “allowance”, every now and then I would overspend (usually on books) and, as a result, the cupboard would be bare. Fortunately,there was the little family grocery around the corner. The owner would save veggies for me that were on its way to the dumpster. I would stop by the nearest pond to fish for my dinner and it’s amazing what you can do with rice, eggs , milk and some imagination. When I was researching antique receipts, imagine my surprise when I found this recipe. I made this plenty of times when I had nothing else and wanted to satisfy my sweet tooth. I just didn’t know it had a name.

Did you know that a reference to frumentie is found in the third verse of the seventeenth-century nursery rhyme, “Pop Goes The Weasel”? “Pop Goes the Weasel” dates back to 17th century England, and was spread across the Empire by colonists. …
Half a pound of tuppenny rice,
Half a pound of treacle.
Mix it up and make it nice,
Pop goes the weasel.

SOURCE: A True Gentlewomans Delight, 1653

DESCRIPTION: A recipe for frumenty

“To make Furmentie

Take a quart of sweet Cream, two or three sprigs of Mace, and a Nutmeg cut in half, put into your cream, so let it boil, then take your French Barlie or Rice, being first washed clean in fair water three times, and picked clean, then boyle it in sweet milk till it be tender, then put it into your cream, and boil it well, and when it hath boiled a good while, take the yolks of six or seven eggs, beat them very well, and thicken on a soft fire, boyl it, and stir it for it will quickly burn, when you thinke it is boyled enough, sweeten it to your taste, and so serve it in with Rosewater, and Musk Sugar , in the same manner you may make it with wheat.”